name: Jamie Lutz Carroll
media: painting
more: blog
email: email Jamie

My interest in art began at the age of six with a stack of hand-me-down Walter Foster "Learn to Draw" books. My interest in painting really blossomed in high school when Mrs. Garver introduced us to oil paints. Until that point I had only used watercolors and other translucent paints and hated the softness of the results. But oil paints were so different - depth, strength, body, opacity, endless adventures in color mixing, even the smell of turpentine - I loved it all! Today I predominantly use acrylics, but still like to catch a whiff of turp every now and then.

In my paintings I really try to capture the underlying emotions of my subject. Insecurity, vulnerability, doubt, fear... The feelings we all try to hide are the ones I want to explore with my art. Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Painting is how I examine life, my own and that of others; and it's what makes my life feel purposeful and "worth living".